Polls Find Clinton Leading Nationally and in Key States

票数表明克林顿在关键州及全国领先

In U.S. presidential politics, not all states are treated equally. In the final days before the November 8 election, Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republican Donald Trump are focused on a small handful of so called “battleground” or “swing” states that will determine who will be the next president of the United States. About two-thirds of the 50 states generally lean toward one party or the other, leaving a dozen or so states that are up for grabs every four years.

The U.S. elects a president through the state-by-state accumulation of votes through the Electoral College, where the candidate who wins the popular vote in a given state is then awarded all of that state’s electoral votes. There are two minor exceptions in Maine and Nebraska where some of the electoral votes are awarded by congressional district.

In the final days of the campaign, Clinton and Trump repeatedly target the same handful of states, which is why both White House hopefuls are making frequent visits to Ohio, Florida and North Carolina and small groups of other states that loom pivotal on election day.

Red, blue and swing states

For several years the United States has been sharply divided politically, with many states in presidential elections leaning toward one party or the other. “In many states, one party has a very big lead and there is no sense in spending a lot of resources at the presidential level in that state,” said Georgetown University analyst Stephen Wayne.

That leaves about a dozen so-called “battleground” or “swing” states where Trump and Clinton spend most of their time, said George Mason University expert Jeremy Mayer. “In the modern presidential campaign, you run campaigns only in about 12 states. The list can change from year to year, although in the last three election cycles, it is fairly stable.”

The swing states that get the most attention include large states like Florida, Ohio and Colorado, as well as smaller ones like North Carolina, Virginia, Iowa, Nevada and New Hampshire. And Mayer adds voters in those states get the brunt of the political ad blitz. “It makes those 12 states really the targets of this whole election discourse. So both campaigns in a normal year would have massive ground operations, would have endless TV ads and would be phone-calling and robot-calling voters in those 12 states.”

This year, the Clinton campaign is trying to make history by expanding the competitive map to historically Republican states like Arizona, Georgia and even Texas. Polls show a fairly close race in Arizona in particular and Clinton is within striking distance in both Georgia and Texas. Arizona last voted for a Democrat in 1996 and Texas supported Democrat Jimmy Carter back in 1976.